


Mad Max: Road Dogs

by DarkFairytale



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Animal Abuse, Animal Death, Bromance, Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Death, Dogs, Gen, I basically casted Jon Bernthal into a Mad Max movie, Loneliness, Post-Mad Max: Fury Road, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, and a dog, mentions of the following - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-28
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-24 19:23:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,413
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20019757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkFairytale/pseuds/DarkFairytale
Summary: The man didn’t shoot. And neither did Max. They waited at a standstill, guns trained on each other. Max did not know how long the tense, silent standoff lasted. But it was broken by a dog.Max grunted in surprise when he felt something nudge at his arm. He glanced down, and found himself looking at a pit bull dog. The dog was looking up at him with its head cocked. Max stared back.There was another long, strange pause.And then the other man said, “Don’t shoot my dog.”





	Mad Max: Road Dogs

**Author's Note:**

> So I have waited long enough for Tom Hardy and Jon Bernthal to star together in a movie. So I decided to write a character that Jon Bernthal could play in the Mad Max series, because let's face it, Bernthal would rock as a character in the world of Mad Max. This is kind of inspired by a few posts I've seen on tumblr and twitter about how Tom Hardy and Jon Bernthal should star in a buddy movie with at least one dog in it. Because they both have the same vibe, are both super talented and both love dogs. I have decided to provide said scenario! So I hope you enjoy.

The roads that still existed in the wasteland were straight. Straight, straightforward and uncomplicated. Straight, because you could drive in a straight line for miles and miles and miles, on and on and on, wasteland either side, ahead and behind, as far as the eye could see. No water, just desert sand and rock. Straightforward, because everybody knew that the wasteland held no drinkable water, no remorse. Uncomplicated, because everybody knew that if you stuck to the marked roads, you would die. The tribes of scavengers that had adapted to survive in that environment would pick you off, waiting for the unaware that still believed it would be safer to stick to the roads. No. It was never safer to stick to the roads.

That was why Max travelled off-road, these days. Roads were bad. Roads got people killed; friends, recent acquaintances, the innocent, wives and sprogs. Roads were fury. Max had been a road warrior once, but as the years had passed, his singular instinct to survive had sent him on lesser travelled stretches of wasteland. Better chance of survival when they don’t know which direction you are going to drive; a direction other than _straight_ into the desert, the storm. 

Straight there and right back again had worked well enough on Fury Road, but a lot of people had died, and it wouldn't work now that Max was travelling alone once more. Avoiding the main roadways meant avoiding the towns, civilisation, the thickest density of people and scavengers and tribes, and people that would need his help and would inevitably die, or be left scathed, in one way or another, or be driven mad if they hadn’t been already. Max could maybe relate a little.

He was travelling an unpredictable stretch of sand, well versed on which areas were safe to drive over, in the car that he had managed to acquire after his last one had been taken by the fury road. He hadn’t seen a soul. The terrain was hard to navigate and the scavengers that thrived here didn’t bother to chase victims down; they just swept up after the ones that were unsuccessful in the crossing. Max wasn’t going to get collected up by the scavengers, and was making good ground. He hadn’t seen a soul. No good souls, no evil souls, no souls at all.

Which was why he was surprised when his car crested a dune, and he saw another car stranded at the bottom of it. It looked abandoned; it certainly wasn’t going anywhere. Max could have left it alone. He could have. But the idea of swiping some spare parts before the scavengers could sweep the area was too tempting.

He drove down the dune in the direction of the car. He kept a sharp eye on his surroundings; looking for scavengers, tribes, other vehicles. He had already considered the possibility of it being a trap, but this piece of wasteland was nowhere near used enough for anyone to even bother putting bait there. But the car hadn’t been picked over yet, which meant it had only recently stopped, and the drivers were likely still around.

His curiosity over the whereabouts of the car’s occupants was answered when, at about ten meters away from the car, a bullet glanced off the corner of his windshield. Max slammed the breaks with a screech and cloud of dust and ducked behind the dashboard, hauling himself across the seats, grabbing one of his concealed handguns as he went, and rolling out of the passenger side, putting the car between himself and the attacker. He swung his arms over the hood, gun pointing in the direction of the other car and the source of the bullet. Other shots hadn’t followed, which made him wonder if it had been a warning shot rather than an attack.

It did not take him long to locate the shooter, because he was mirroring Max’s own stance. A rifle rested on the hood of the other car, the man behind it aiming it at Max.

But the man didn’t shoot. And neither did Max. They waited at a standstill, guns trained on each other. Max did not know how long the tense, silent standoff lasted.

But it was broken by a dog.

Max grunted in surprise when he felt something nudge at his arm. He glanced down, and found himself looking at a pit bull dog. The dog was looking up at him with its head cocked. Max stared back.

There was another long, strange pause.

And then the other man said, “Don’t shoot my dog.”

Max snorted loudly, bemused, fixing his gaze and his aim back on the man. Max hadn’t spoken for a long time; he hadn’t had much human interaction since Imperator Furiosa and the race to the Green Place, but, during that experience and the initially-forced-and-then-willing cooperation with Furiosa, the Wives and Nux, his years of antisocial solitude had ebbed a little, and his ability to interact with others had improved, a little.

Enough that he could now reply; “I’m not going to shoot the dog.”

“No,” The man agreed, “You’re going to shoot me, and when you do, the dog will attack you for it. When that happens, don’t hurt my dog.”

“I’m not going to hurt your dog.”

“And me?”

Max shrugged with a grunt. “You were the one that shot at me.”

“Warning, man, it was just a warning.”

The dog was still nudging at Max’s elbow and Max was apparently unable to stop himself from lowering the hand not on the trigger to pet its head. But he did it reluctantly, he told himself, and believed it for all of two seconds before the dog’s tail started wagging, thumping on the sand where it sat.

Max glanced back at the other man, surprised to find himself amused. He didn’t crack a smile though. It had been a long, long while since Max had smiled. “You sure it would attack me if I shot you?” he asked. Because the dog seemed to like Max well enough, and wasn't acting particularly protective of its owner.

The man shrugged a shoulder, “You wanna find out?”

Bullets were scarce outside of bullet farms and trading towns and so Max used them sparingly, for absolute necessity; Max tried to make as few a trips to bullet farms and trading towns as possible. Plus he didn’t want yet another man’s blood on his hands if he didn’t really have to. 

“Not really.”

They descended into yet another silent standoff, but this time it was about who was going to lower their gun - rather than shoot it – first.

“Look, man,” the other man finally relented. “I don’t want trouble, honest.”

He looked like the kind of man who would like trouble. He had a face with strong features; a hard jawline, sharp angles of heavy stubble framing his face, a nose that looked like it had seen more than its fair share of breaks. He looked burly, muscled shoulders, a similar stature to Max; and as Max knew that he himself could be intimidating, this guy looked intimidating too. But action betrayed first impression, when the other man, after a minute or two more of assessment, drew up the rifle with practiced ease. He did not stand up. He did not touch the safety.

Max nodded sharply and retracted his gun, but kept it in hand.

The other man whistled, and the dog immediately and obediently took off back towards him. The man stood up cautiously, slowly, and reached out to catch the dog by the strip of soft leather collaring its neck.

Max stood too, slowly. If the man had one hand on the dog, he wouldn’t be quick to raise the rifle again. Max slowly came from around the back of his car.

Max did not trust many people. His determination not to trust or become involved with groups, or get too close to anyone else, was often tested; most recently by Furiosa, Capable, The Splendid Angharad, Toast the Knowing, The Dag, Cheedo the Fragile, the Many Mothers and Nux. Imperator Furiosa, especially. He had trusted those he had rode the fury road with. But there had been others before that; The Gyro Captain, Jedediah, the Feral Kid, Pig Killer, Savannah Nix…and all that had come before, after and in between. Those who had survived and those who had not; those that Max saw sometimes, screaming for his help, even when he was years too late to save them.

He did not know whether to trust this man. Just as the man did not seem to know whether to trust Max.

Max surprised even himself by making the first move toward further verbal interaction; “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a dog,” he said, voice rough from lack of use and the dry heat of the desert.

It was true; most of the dogs had gone feral, living in wild packs, or had been trained as guard or attack dogs for towns – which Max made great pains to avoid unless absolutely necessary – and, of course, a lot of dogs had also been eaten.

As though following Max’s train of thought, the other man said, “Don’t eat my dog.”

Max frowned. “I’m not going to eat your dog. I like dogs. I had one.” He had had Dog, his Australian Cattle Dog. Dog had been killed by one of Lord Humungus’ Marauders.

So many that travelled with Max died. His dog, his companions, his family. His wife and child. Voices screaming at him, for him. Even now he heard their voices: "Where were you, Max?", "Max? Is that you?", "You promised to help us!", "You let us die!", "Where were you, Max?" Sometimes he could hear Dog barking. He could hear his wife screaming, their sprog...And sometimes, now, after Fury Road, he could hear the war cries of the Vuvalini, the screamed demands of the War Boys: ‘Witness me!’ and ‘Valhalla!’ and Nux shouting ‘blood bag!’ at him. "Oh, what a day! What a lovely day!" The dead did not have lovely days. Not the ones who visited Max.

“Oh yeah?” the man seemed to relax a little further, apparently appeased at just hearing that Max had once also owned a dog. “After the world went to pure shit?”

Max nodded. “It got killed.”

The man actually looked sympathetic. Like the loss of Dog was as much a loss as a friend, a wife, a child…“What was its name?”

“Dog.”

The man quirked an eyebrow, and grinned, and he looked far less intimidating when he smiled. Max could not remember the last time he had smiled like that.

“Inventive,” the man said. He patted the side of the head of the pit bull dog sitting obediently at his side. It was panting in the heat, but seemed happy. Its tail wagged at the affection. "This is Bull.”

Max snorted and threw back, “Inventive.”

The man’s grin cracked wider, a split in his lip breaking and starting to bleed. He looked a little crazy. Under closer inspection, the man looked to be a similar age to Max, and despite the strong features, there was something youthful and boyish about his face too. Maybe it was the smile. Maybe it was the eyes. Maybe it was because it had been a long time since Max had seen a smile like that, or eyes that earnest...Max was trying to figure out the other man’s pleasantness. Was he just insane? Possibly; Max had met plenty of crazy people along the road. Or was he just starving for human communication and happy to have someone other than a dog to talk to? Maybe; a life of chosen solitude was necessary for survival, but it was lonely too. Or, of course, was he just trying to put Max at ease before trying to kill him? Just as likely; Max knew that well enough. 

The other man had questions of his own. “Where you heading?”

Max shrugged. He did not answer. He did not have a destination. Just the wasteland. And the unmarked road.

“Nice car,” the man said.

Max’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. He grunted his acknowledgment of the compliment, before eyeing the other man’s car skeptically. What was it that this man wanted?

“Mine’s fucked,” the man said, seeming to pick up on Max’s suspicion. He turned to wrench the hood up. “The engine ate up too much sand and it’s choked. I’ve been trying to fix it for hours. No dice.”

Max hummed. He motioned at the car.

The man seemed pleased. “Sure man, be my guest.”

“Back up,” Max demanded, gesturing with his gun that the man should move further away from his car, and in turn, further away from Max’s car. Max was going to keep himself between his car and the man, in case the fucker tried to make a break for Max’s vehicle. And try and leave Max in the dust.

“If you sick your dog on me or make a break for my car I will shoot you,” Max warned, as the man held up placating hands and backed up enough steps for Max to deem it enough to approach.

“I’m not going to try and steal your car, man,” the man said.

Max grunted and turned to look under the hood, keeping his gun subtly trained on the other man’s thigh as precaution. The other guy had clearly seen Max’s gun and where it was pointing, but he still moved a little closer to start pointing out where the problems were. They began to communicate in singular words and grunts and hums as they inspected the damage, speaking and understanding a very similar language; the minimalistic language of the folk who had spent way too many years alone.

The other man had tattoos, Max noted, on his arms, possibly more under his shirt, but Max could not see any marks that looked fresh enough to be tribe or scavenger tattoos; they all looked old.

“It’s fucked,” Max agreed, after a few minutes of inspection of the vehicle. Parts were so rusted he was surprised it had made it so far off-marked-road.

“Fuck,” the man growled under his breath. “The scavengers will clear this out. Clear me out. I need to make tracks before I’m scavenger chow.”

“They might eat you,” Max agreed. He’d been there. Hell, he’d been a prisoner, a blood bag, an intended meal… “They will definitely eat your dog.”

“I know they’ll eat my dog, man,” the man groaned, reaching up to grip his hair, “Shit.” He stopped. He scrubbed a hand over the back of his head, clearly debating something. “Hey man,” he started slowly, cautious, “Can we do a deal?”

Max’s eyes narrowed and he backed several paces towards his own car, gun at the ready. “I don’t do deals.”

“Just hear me out,” the man said, eyes wide and frantic at the idea of Max leaving, and at the sound of his masters’ distress, Bull finally showed some of the guard-dog that had been warned at the beginning of the encounter, his hackles rising, his teeth bared in a snarl.

Max took in the man’s earnest expression, the dog. Max had really missed having a dog. “Listening,” he allowed on a grumble.

“You can pick this over,” the man gestured at his own, broken down car, “Take any spare parts you need that are in good nick. I’m guessing that’s what you wanted when you drove this way? You can have your spare parts and the extra gasoline, just, just take me and Bull a little ways up the road, just until we find another vehicle we can salvage and get on our way? We got places to be, so we won't bother you longer than we have to.”

Max stood stone still, eyes fixed on the man, assessing, calculating. Max had always been a good judge of character when with the Main Force Patrol, a lifetime ago, and in the lifetime since had been forced to become an even better one. He was wary of everyone and everything, but he had instincts, and those instincts had saved his life more times than he could count. This man, he seemed to be ok. The dog looked in better condition than him, which, to Max, spoke volumes about the man's character.

Finally, finally, Max allowed a short, sharp nod, and the man looked so relieved and grateful that Max couldn’t look at him for long.

“Let’s strip it and be gone,” Max said. “We’ve been here too long.”

He was right. Halfway through stripping the vehicle, they began to hear the distant roar of bikes. Scavengers.

“We need to move,” Max growled. “Now.”

The other man grabbed the bag he had stuffed with his and Bull’s remaining provisions, while whistling for the dog. Max, who had already taken the gas cans and salvaged the most necessary spare parts first was happy to abandon the rest, and shoved what he had into the trunk of his car, before leaping into the driver’s seat. The other man threw his bag through the open window onto the backseat, and wrenched the passenger door open, Bull climbing in first and between the front seats to sit on the backseat, as the other man swung into the passenger seat and Max took off.

The engines they had heard were still in the distance; Max could put an hours’ distance between them and the scavengers before the scavengers would even make it to the abandoned car, and by that time, Max’s vehicle would be out of sight, and the scavengers would be too distracted by taking apart the rest of the car and looking for the driver to realise that they needed to be in pursuit of another vehicle.

The other man relaxed finally into his seat. They had both put away their guns during their preparations to abandon the other car, but Max had another handgun strapped under the steering wheel just in case. The other man did not need to know that, and wouldn’t know that, unless he tried something.

“I shouldn’t have driven this way really,” the man spoke up after nearly an hour of silence. “I should have known the car wouldn’t hack the sand, but,” he shrugged, “Avoiding the towns, and the roadways, you know?”

Max made a low noise of agreement.

“And people say that _I’m_ a man of few words,” the man quipped. Max wondered what people had said that and when. He wondered how many people this man had met and lost along the road. He said he had places to be, though, so maybe he still had people to go back to. Dangerous to keep company; too much chance of losing the lot of them.

Max snorted. “ _You_ are a man of few words?” he repeated, and once again surprised himself, because he was being _sarcastic_. It had been a long, long time since Max had said something sarcastic. Max had only said serious words of necessity for a long time now.

“Yeah,” the man said, grinning again. Maybe this man was so quick to smile because he had a dog, Max pondered. Max had always been happier in this fucked-up world with the company of his dog, too. “And you’re a man of even less.”

“So we won’t have much to talk about,” Max countered pointedly, eyes fixed on the road. Fingers ready on the wheel, just in case, just in case he had to reach for the gun.

“I guess not, man,” the other man said, sounding happy; probably still relieved at his turn of fate; no longer desperately trying to fix his car so that he and his dog weren’t left to the mercy of scavengers, or instead, to get lost and die in the wasteland. “Other than your name, maybe.”

Max glanced at him from the corner of his eye. The other man wasn’t looking at him either, eyes on the wasteland ahead.

“I’m Cain,” the man offered, prompted.

Cain. Max did not know if he had wanted to know that. Names were dangerous. Names were an attachment. Names were something to put to the faces that screamed at Max in his dreams, in his waking hallucinations.

But he had nearly been too late to tell Furiosa his, and he would have regretted that.

“Max,” Max said. “My name is Max.”

**Author's Note:**

> Cain's name was chosen for 'canine', 'Crazy Cain' or 'Insane Cain' to go with 'Mad Max', and also, for Cain and a-Bull, because I'm witty like that.
> 
> After this story the following things happen:  
> \- They keep looking for, but don't find, another vehicle for Cain and Bull to use and Max inevitably ends up getting swept up in Cain's journey and ends up travelling with him for a while.  
> \- Cain sees Max's back tattoo of blood bag specifications and questions him about it.  
> \- Cain and Max save a few more dogs (two would be called Wolf and Dingo, I reckon. All dog names would stick to the 'Dog', 'Bull' animal theme).  
> \- Including a puppy which Max can be cute with a la Tom Hardy in The Drop.  
> \- They may or may not make it to Cain's destination, and meet Cain's older brother. Who may or may not be played by Keanu Reeves. And there are more dogs. I don't make the rules.  
> \- Max and Cain and Cain's brother (who may or may not be Keanu Reeves) become bros of the road with their pack of dogs; the ultimate Road Dogs.
> 
> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! Comments, kudos and bookmarks are all greatly loved and appreciated. And here's to Mad Max: The Wasteland finally coming our way! <3


End file.
